Comfort is associated with balance. We feel most comfortable when our lives are in balance. Looking at our world today and the chaotic busy lives we lead, you might think that we are most comfortable with busyness. But, few of us would say we’re comfortable with the pace of our lives. I suspect we have lost sight of balance and don’t know how to get it back.

One way to consciously commit to a life of balance and the comfort it brings is to strive for balance in the energies of our homes and offices. What the heck does that mean?  Feng shui teaches that what we have in our living and working spaces anchors energies that affect what happens in our lives. So, if we want more balance in our lives, let’s create more balance in our environments.

We know what being out of balance looks like in our personal lives. We have too much work and too little play, too much work and too little family time, too much rushing around and too little relaxation.

Let’s see what being out of balance in your environment looks like. If we look at being out of balance as having too much of something that is not desirable and too little of something that is desirable and apply it to our living spaces, what we find are spaces with too much stuff and too little storage, too much darkness and not enough light, too much clutter and not enough order. What immediately comes to mind for me is closets packed to the gills, attics full of stuff that is rarely touched, piles of paper and other clutter, more things than storage room. Other ways it shows up is having too much furniture for the size of a room, rooms that have white walls, and rooms that have very little color in them.

Balance, by the way, is relative. Balance for one person may not be balance for another. For example, a few years ago I visited a friend who had taken great pains to create a lovely, comfortable, clutter-free home.  Everything in the space was carefully chosen to be in the space. There was plenty of storage space for all of her belongings even in her small house. I was so impressed. And yet, her house seemed stark to me. It may have been perfect for her, but I needed more in my space to soften it up and make it feel cozy.

Seeing her space, however, and feeling the pleasure that comes from a space with fewer items talking to me (the energy of things actually communicates with us), I realized that I did want more of that. I came home motivated to go through parts of my house and clear out things I no longer wanted or used. By looking at her house, which to me seemed a little stark, I could see that mine, though attractive and generally comfortable, was still out of balance in terms of the ratio of stuff to space.

Do you have balance in your life and in your home? The question to ask is “how comfortable am I?” How comfortable am I with the pace of my life? And, how comfortable am I in my home? You are the only one who can improve the balance. Take at least one step today to bring your life into better balance!

My passion is helping people discover the profound impact that environment has on performance. I want people to know they can change their lives by changing the spaces in which they live and work. Check out my blog or my book, Rock Scissors Paper: Understanding How Environment Affects Your Performance on a Daily Basis.